Cornwall's main hospital has failed to meet its target for treating patients in A&E for the past three years, new figures have revealed.

The Royal Cornwall Hospital (RCH) achieved an 87.6% rate of seeing A&E patients within four hours when its target as set by NHS England is 95%.

According to the BBC, which has launched an NHS tracker widget to help patients around the UK find out how their local hospital is faring and whether it is meeting its targets, RCH also failed to achieve its target of seeing patients with 18 weeks.

The hospital's rate is 88.3% against a 92% target.

Unite union has called for a £100m cash injection to be made to reboot Royal Cornwall Hospital after it was put into special measure s by the CQC following a damning report (Image: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

However it was not all negative for the Trust as figures revealed it had consistently achieved its 85% target for cancer care (85.2% of patients were seen within 62 days).

Rab McEwan, chief operating officer, told BBC Radio Cornwall that failing to meet its A&E target had an impact further down the line with planned operations.

He said the problem was across the board and not just confined to Cornwall.

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He added: "Residents in Cornwall do receive a really good cancer care but we are struggling to meet the standards for A&E. It's a problem across the NHS.

"The issue for us is in term of emergency care and pressures which also impact on our later care programme. We are struggling.

"It has an impact on the rest of the hospital. It means we have to prioritise the more urgent cases."

The CQC report shows that, during the inspections, safety proved to be the main issue (Image: Carl Court/Getty Images)

Mr McEwan said there was a huge issue of bed blocking with patients being in hospital when a social care package of care involving them staying in their own home would work better.

He said: "We're working a lot better with our social care partner but there are many people who are bed blocking in hospital who should be cared for in their own homes but the package of care is not there for them."

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The failed target figures come as patients at RCH's A&E are among the least happy in England with waiting times.

Those visiting Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust-managed hospitals gave a score of 58.8 in the 2016/17 Overall Patient Experience Scores: Emergency Department Survey - one of the lowest scores in the country.

They cited the length of time of their visit as a major reason for the low score.

Each area in the survey is scored out of 100. Generally, if patients were reporting that their wait was between four and six hours then the score would be around 60, if they were reporting waits of between six and eight hours then the score would be around 40.

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Royal Cornwall Hospital in special measures

The Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust faces being put into special measures following a damning report from the Care Quality Commission watchdog highlighted numerous failings.

Overall, acute and specialist trusts across England got a score of 65.1 for the access and waiting domain.

This domain captures information about the length of time patients’ emergency department visits lasted and how long they waited before interactions with doctors or nurses.

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For high quality coordinated care, trusts scored 78.6. This area of the survey includes questions about whether patients had trust and confidence in those treating them, whether they were given consistent messages by different members of staff and whether they were warned of danger signals to observe after they had been discharged.

Trusts got a score of 77.7 for the better information, better choices area, which captures feedback on whether patients were involved as much as they wanted to be in their care and treatment, whether they received the right amount of information about their condition and treatment and whether staff clearly explained the purpose and side effects of medicines.

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This assesses whether doctors or nurses spoke about patients as if they weren’t there, whether patients felt listened to, whether patients had enough time to discuss their health or medical problems and anxieties or fears and whether conditions and treatments were explained in a way that patients could understand.

Trusts scored 85.7 for the domain clean, comfortable, friendly place to be, which assesses the cleanliness of the emergency department and how patients felt they were treated by staff, including how much privacy they were given, whether they were helped to manage their pain and if they felt that they were treated with dignity and respect.